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1099849 tn?1293492703

Panic Attacks and Seizures related?

I'm 55 yrs old woman who recently began having panic attacks... they started out with a fogginess in the top part and front of my brain for about 3 days and then the 1st panic attack occurred. They went on day after day after day for 8 days until my PC doc gave me colonazepam to stop the occurances... but I noticed something strange happening before I was put on this medication and I'm wondering if it might be a problem with brain seizure....

Before I started taking this medication, I noticed that I was experiencing what I can only describe as excessive electrical activity in my frontal lobe area on both sides of the top of my head... and I'm wondering if even though it resulted in a panic.attack syndrome, .. would any  of you know if this panic might actually be related to my having problems with seizures and the panic is just a symptom of a more serious condition.... a sort of pre-symptom?

Some History :  About a year and 1/2 ago I had a serious fall from a ladder directly on my head... broke 6 vertebrae and just found out on friday (by reading medical reports a pulmanologist asked me to retrieve for him from a previous doc)  that I also broke 20 ribs ( I assume they mean fractured or some combination that I was never informed of) on my left ribcage... (which explains why my breathing is often restricted) but I have seemed to recover overall... and

I recently had a brain CT scan (without a contrast so it didn't really show the brains activity) but I have no swelling or leisons that are apparent or tumors or anything of that sort..

The reason I'm asking is that Clonazepam is also used for epilepsy and seizures and I don't want to take myself off this medication until I'm sure that the panic attacks aren't related.

I was told by my PC Doctor that my insurance will not approve an eeg or mri since the CT scan showed a very healthy looking brain... so I'm in a bit of a quandry at the moment since I can't test to see if this electrical problem is significant...

I'd really apppreciate your thoughts on the subject...
Thanks Kathy
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1099849 tn?1293492703
I saw my PCP this week.. He gave me the 3 month script I need to finally be able to withdraw completely from the meds I'm on... and in the meantime I'm planning to look for a Female PCP because I think it's likely I'll be taken more seriously. Or if nothing else she will understand more intimately the challenges I face as a woman.

I also plan to be tested for hormone levels and can already guess that I'm low in progestrone.... (not sure that's spelled right) but don't want to take hormone drugs..(they are far to dangerous) .. so I'll be looking for healthy alternatives, if any exist.

*K
Helpful - 0
1099849 tn?1293492703
Thank you so much for such encouraging and hopeful words! It's been a long struggle, but I am grateful for this time in my life to face unresolved emotional problems and take better care of my health before developing more serious illnesses. I think our bodies are trying to tell us something and we have to trust ourselves and get whatever tests we can done to eliminate (if nothing else) what the problem isn't to often narrow down what it is. I had a thyroid test along the way this past year and it came back normal.

In my case, my life has been so difficult, ridden with so much abuse, confusion and heart break  and all its dysfuctions, that it finally got to the point where I couldn't take internalizing things any longer, not without the most primitive part of my brain, crying out for help... and making me face up to myself.. not so much as in getting straight with myself.. but loving myself enough to say enough is enough and really work hard towards overcoming and finding out who I really am. I'm still learning of course..

Thank you for your compassion and love... *Kathy
Helpful - 0
551343 tn?1506830518
Hi Kathy I got half way through your post and thought I wonder if your problems were all post menopausal and then in your p.s. you wonder the same thing lol.

GREAT MINDS think alike lol.

Panic attacks are horrible, i too have suffered from them at times they are no joke.

I think you have acted brilliantly about the problems with this drug its all too easy to just give us medication but the medication can be a lot of our problems.

I dont personally take ANYTHING now as all the stuff I tried mind me feel weird, spaced out or so tired I couldnt cope in the morning, so I am tablet free apart from my blood pressure tablet.

A few of my friends who have fibromyalgia and also RA are addicted now to prescription drugs I think that is awful for them, and their doctors seem to encourage it some how.

Even my husband is addicted to pain killers although he wont agree. I say to him why do you need all these pain killers IF your in that much pain you should be dead or dying lol. He started because of pain in his muscles and now takes the strongest tablet you can get without being on morphine. I worry about him as recently he had a black out which I am sure is to do with the tablets.....and when he fell he broke a rib and didnt even know it......

You should pat yourself on the back you are AMAZING well done for being so positive, you have made my day.... thank you.

Please stay around there we are always here for you and if you fancy a moan off forum you can contact me on my inbox.

Well done again, and i hope it is all just down to menopause.  

What you can do is have a hormone test this will see how your hormones are, and also perhaps a thyroid test as one of the commonest symptoms of thyroid problems is panic and anxiety attacks.

Big hugs. Mariaxxxx
Helpful - 0
1099849 tn?1293492703
I got your email! Thought I'd send and update! Well, over time the Clonazepam I was given required me to take more and more to get the same effect.. (part of it's own drawbacks). and I went from 1/4mg to 2mgs, which made me calm but I'd find myself jonesing for more between doses... Finally after talking with my Doc and having him say he wanted me to continue with the drug for another couple months, even though it was making me constantly tired and cognitively drugged... and getting the same kind of answer from the counselor I was seeing... saying "If the medication is making you feel better, why would you want to stop taking it". I got fed up with both of them.

At which point I decided that part of the problem was I was taking it 1mg ~ 2 times a day.. meaning every 12 hours and at about the 3rd hour I start to cry for a good hourr or so  and by the 9th hour I have a need for more... enough was enough... and instead of going cold turkey, which would have been stupid, after reading up on the drug and it's properties, tapering schedules etc... I first decided to take it 4 times a day (not increase the dose) so I would not have to wait so long between doses.... the adjustment was uncomfortable but doable.... and I did so...

In the meantime I began using every psychological tool I could find... such as.. bi-aural beats, cognitive behavorial changes, guided imagery, self hypnosis, meditation, and counseling... All were very helpful...

One thing that surprised me, that like will not surprise many of you is that when I discussed taper off this medication with my Doctor, he said... "When you are feeling better, we'll cut the medication in half" ... Now everything I'd read about Clonazepam sent up red flags to me.. and it made me question the Doctors judgement... there is no way it is in any way wise to cut Clonazepam dosage in half and just jump down radically if you've been on it for more than a few weeks... (at this point I'd been on the stuff a few months short of a year.

The verse " Physician Heal Thyself" came to my mind and I began tapering off this drug... 1/8 mg per day with a waiting period of 2 week between tapers to allow my blood sugar levels to stablize before tapering down again...

I'm proud to say I've gone from 2mgs a day to 1.125 per day and just finished my 7th taper this last week...

Now am still in LIMBO as to what caused the panic attacks I was having nearly a year ago now... the medication I've been on has been controlling them .. but I've gotten a much better handle on my psychological challenges .. at least in dealing with each taper and it's withdrawl like effect for the first 4 days of each pace down. It allows me to see weaknesses in my emotions as issues have come up nearly every withdrawl period of 72 hours and helped me to address these negative thinking and heart breaking realizations... (each time a different emotional problem popping up) and I've come a long way in learning to relax and face things that I could not, or had not faced emotionally for my entire life. (unkown to me, until the panic set in).

I'm very proud of my psychological progress.. but of course still have ongoing medical problems that reallly haven't been addressed and once I'm off the medication.. which will take me another 3 months... we will see if I can handle panic drug free... and will be switching Doctors, because my doctor seems not to really listen to what I am saying.. I get the distinct feeling  (well, I know) that he sees my issues as hysteria and isn't taking what I am telling him seriously enough...

I see the Doc today, because I have to to get the next 3 month supply of the drugs I need and he put me on... and from there I will be see a new PCP... gather all medical records from him ... read each and everyone of them... make sure nothing is missing  and move on to a better diagnosis with a new physician... to finally be at the point where I feel better and back to myself before all this craziness began.

PS.. with conserted effort I've learned that post menonpausal women often have similiar problems to mine when it comes to panic due a lack of all sorts of health related deficiencies and I'll be doing as much as I can to compenstate for these needs the healthy way.. once I've Clonazepam free... Not that I haven't been doing what I can in the meantime to improve my own health...

Love Kathy
Helpful - 0
1099849 tn?1293492703
Okay.. so here's an odd update... When I had the initial panic attack and took myself to the hospital thinking I was having a heart attack or syndrome leading to it they took a chest xray... and I signed on with Primary Care Doc. .. to start taking better care of myself etc.... and to get that medication to stop the 8 days of continous panic syndrome... and a few weeks later the hospital sends me a notice that the tech that reads the xrays has notice 2 nodules on my right lower lung...so my PC Doc immediately gives me the clonazepam because he's far more concerned with the lung problem and doesn't want me stressed out in the meantime... so he sends me to have a Scan with constrast and it turns out the nodes on my lung look stable and not cancerous but the new Pulmanologists wants me to do forensic work and gather the previous shots of my lungs done during the initial accident. So I do that and woo hoo the nodes were there well over a year ago and comparing the xrays they haven't grown and the likely conclusion is something like Valley Fever a good 3 or more years ago and cause by a fungus... okay that's good...

but check this out...and it makes me very angry... in doing the forensic work I order all my records to be picked up in person to hand carry them to the pulmanologist and I decide of course to read the previous Dr's conclusions and I find out ... I broke 20 ribs on my left side... ( you don't have 20 ribs on your left ribcage so that must mean fractures and possible breaks) I was never told anything about this but suffered with a problem on my left side for a long time and even now have pain when I bend a particular way....and I can't expand my left lung fully ... which is part of what frightened me when the panic attacks started... that I felt I could not breath.... and although the clonazepam helped alot I still find myself at stages where I can't get my left lung to fully inflate and my left rib cage is deformed... so .....

I'm angry because if I had known I had 20 fractures and possible broken ribs we could have checked that more closely to see if some of the bones are sticking out and affecting my liver or spleen or digestive system or something and that's what's interfering with my ability to expand my left side enough to feel like I can fully breath...

The panic could easily be my brain telling me.. hey... you have a breathing problem and a good reason for my to trigger fight or flight... because it needs to addressed...

I don't know this as a medical professional... but I have been complaning to my Doc that my left ribs have been bothering me... etc...

now a full constrast of my chect was done and it would seem any specialist reading the danged thing should have noticed if I'm having a more serious problem but it's obvious to me that my left lung is definately under capasity... so I will be seeing my PC Doc and bringing the report from the initial Doc so he understands I have a real problem on my left side and then we can have a specialist look at that Chest CT that was done with Contrast at exactly the area where my deformed ribs are and see what in the heck could be going on to keep my left lung from fully expanding...

My advice to anyone... no matter what ... God like Doctors tell you when they get reports from other doctors you've seen... make them give  you a copy of the Doctors report... because we tend to be left out of the loop of what's really going on with our bodies and had I known then what I just found out... I could have possibly done something to improve my current situtation or at least have test run to see if I ended up damaging my spleen or liver or something else along the way.. '

Obviously something is obstructing my full ability to expand my left lung... sheesh... I felt so angry when I read the report ... and wasn't even told I had such a serious problem and nothing was done to help with the 20 broken ribs..... *sigh...

from now on I'm getting a copy of every report so I can read for myself what these Doc's are saying to each other and not depend on the conclusions of anyone of them independently...

Kathy
Helpful - 0
1099849 tn?1293492703
wow.. what an amazing group of kindhearted people you all are... answering my questions and rooting for me to find out what the problem is.... thank you all so much
Helpful - 0
551343 tn?1506830518
Hi Sam it was strange with my brother because for years he kept telling me had weird symptoms, going freezing cold and not being able to get warm, pins and needles in his legs and then this anxiety then his BLOOD PRESSURE went haywire that is what got him diagnosed in the end.  I told him I thought it was his nervous system I was right.

It took about 8 years to be honest.

Dysautomia is nasty.

Mariaxxxx
Helpful - 0
1137779 tn?1281542505
Hi Kathy

Goodness, that was a nasty accident you had there.It's poor that the docs don't tell you clinical and test results. It must have been hard work to recover from all that. I think Stormy and Mrs A have good suggestions.

Andpersonally, I also think that this 'panic disorder/anxiety' stuff is far to overused by unthinking docs.There are lots of histories like Maria's brother whose misdx of 'mental' disorder is often replaced by a dx of some rarish condition (BTW that dysautomia sounds like a nightmare to dx, he must have been through some hell and back).

An EEG is a sensible test I would have thought . I'm intrigued by how you feel the electicity in your brain...just trying to imagine how that feels! Anyway, an EEG shows stuff that doesn't come up in any other scan...that was a dumb reason for withholding a test!

Nope, brainlag here also, can't think what that trigger condition might be. An autonomic system disorder? Getting way out of my depth there!

Meanwhile, keep us posted and take care

samxx
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551343 tn?1506830518
Hi there and welcome.

My brother had panic attacks and some weird stuff going on. He was riddled with anxiety most days from being a healthy guy he just went down hill over the years.

He has just finally been diagnosed with dysautomia so it just shows you that anxiety panic attacks can be a symptom of a disease not just you going nuts.

I cant understand why it isnt appropriate to have an EEG if you have had this electrical problem in your front lobe that doesnt make sense. I didnt think that Epilepsy etc always showed on CT scan anway.

Surely the point is to find out what is going wrong with you.

I wouldnt be surprised if it wasnt the damage to your neck. Isnt there a disease we have discussed on here that can cause lots of problems which can start when you have had an accident, OH DEAR sorry my brain is poor today cant remember the name, but I know one of my lovely buddies on here will probably understand what i am rambling on about.

I think you need an EEG to eliminate seizures thats my opinion anyway.

Big hugs. Mariaxxx

Helpful - 0
1056589 tn?1273747102
Hi Kathy,
Hello & Welcome,

I am sorry you are going through all this...

Have you had any neck/back imaging done recently?
Do you have any numbness or tinling in extremities?
Do you get headaches?

Doctors can be so difficult to deal with. When all my neurological chaos started over a year ago I was initially told I was anorexic and suffering from panic attacks.I was also told that my initial brain MR Iwas normal when infact it was not. Now I have 15 spots/lesions in my brain and am being evaluated for MS. Do not give up on yourself. If you know somthings wrong do not let the doctors tell you otherwise. There are so many of us on here that have been told in one form or another that are symptoms are due to some sort of mental illness. The squeeky wheel gets the grease. I like so many of us on here have been to numerous doctors and specialists. I finally found one that listens and takes me seriously.
Please Take Care, Theresa

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